I posted this to our forum for our users, and thought I would pass it along in case I'm not the only one who didn't know this.
This article shows you how to enter emoticons into our forum. In this forum, the Standard BBCode editor has a tool for entering emoticons. However, if you are using a different editor, you may still enter emoticons. You may use this method to insert emojis into the Title or Description of your YAF post. Additionally, this technique can be used to enter emoticons into most any Windows application, such as email.
These emoticons are not bitmap images, but special characters. Entering a Pretzel emoji 🥨 is conceptually no different than entering the letter A, except that there is no pretzel-key on your keyboard. You can copy and paste just as you would regular text. There are several web sites that display emoticons for you to copy and paste into your work.
There are over 3000 emoticons available. Here is a list of all of them:
https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html Note that you may copy and paste from this site. Copy from the Browser column. Select the character with your mouse, then type {Ctrl+C} or right-click and copy.
This article discusses how to enter these characters in Windows. However, the characters themselves are not specific to Windows. They are standard, and will display correctly on cell phones and non-Windows computers. There will be variations in the artwork across different platforms, but the pictures will convey the same meaning.
Windows 10 has a neat tool for finding and entering emoticons. Place the cursor where you wish to type the emoticon. Press the Windows key then the period key. You may also press the Windows key then the semicolon. A window pops up. The most common items are shown. Across the bottom is a bar where you can select various smiley faces, people (note the colored dots at the top of the list that allow you to select the skin color of the people 👩🏽🧑🏻), food, etc.
Even neater is the search facility. Suppose you want to find a bread character. Press Win Period, then type BREAD. Several bread-related icons appear, including this one: 🍞 To find the roll-eyes emoticon, type ROLL 🙄.